Mobile Wallets Coming Soon To America

The prospects for mobile commerce got a boost Monday when three credit
card issuers said they will let their customers use a mobile-payments service
being developed by several wireless carriers as part of a trial set to begin
this summer.

Mobile-payments services are still in their early stages as
banks, payment processors, wireless carriers and other technology
companies work out the technical and financial kinks.

J.P. Morgan Chase,
Capital One and Barclays will make available a service called Isis, which
will allow consumers to pay for goods at stores by tapping their mobile
phones against a merchant’s payment terminal rather than swiping a plastic
card. The phones must be equipped with a technology called near-field
communication, or NFC, and a merchant must also have special readers
to handle the technology.

Isis is a joint venture of AT&T Inc., T-Mobile
USA and Verizon Wireless. The technology is one of several services
aimed at converting consumers’ smartphones into payment devices, an
effort that analysts say could help banks and merchants find new ways
to push promotions to customers but has been slow to catch on because
of questions about costs and security.